


This Is Life and Death

by KittyCatriona (War_Worn_Lipstick)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Grief, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Oneshot, Phan - Freeform, Recovery, death mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 13:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10465779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/War_Worn_Lipstick/pseuds/KittyCatriona
Summary: Dan Howell has been missing for years, but now he's back. Kind of.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Faintest Wisp of Smoke](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/279765) by Literaryphan. 



> I read [THIS FIC](http://literaryphan.tumblr.com/post/104419118596/faintest-wisp-of-smoke) by literaryphan where Dan goes missing and Phil tries to deal with the terrible loss and was very inspired because it made me so frickin sad for so many days jfc. I needed a conclusion basically, even though that went against the whole idea the author was trying to portray basically lol (that when someone goes missing there is no conclusion, nothing to make you feel better). So if you want you can read that fic first, though it's not necessary at all for this one. It's just like, my inspiration. I wrote this so I could stop dwelling on the first fic and so I wouldn't be so sad lol.

How long has it been since Dan Howell went missing? Phil used to count the hours, and then that became overwhelming, so then he counted the days, but even that was too much. 8,640 hours became 360 days, which became a year, and then two years, three, four, and—fuck—has it been five years? Five whole years since Dan Howell disappeared without a trace? Phil bites his lip and wishes he were crying. He used to cry fairly often, but now the tears never come. 

He thinks of the worst possible things that could have happened to Dan, he thinks of Dan’s poor family who never got to say goodbye, he thinks of all the friends he lost when he retreated into himself, everything he lost, Dan, he lost, lost, lost—

But still his eyes are dry. It’s harrowing and lonely. There’s a boy at the radio station, where Phil now works, who’s been trying to get Phil to go out with him for a long time, but Phil knows the boy would never be like Dan, and what if Dan came back? After all this time? To find Phil had moved on without him?

“He’s not coming back, Phil,” PJ says. “How much longer are you going to dwell on this? I know it’s hard, but he’s not coming back. In just a little while they’ll announce him dead in absentia, you know?”

Phil doesn’t flinch. “Two years, Peej. Two years before then. A lot can happen in two years.” 

PJ tries to convince Phil to move out of the old flat, at least, to no avail. “I have to print up some more fliers,” Phil says instead, and he leaves to do just that. 

Every few weeks Phil goes out with a bag at his hip, and he follows a path around London and takes down the tattered “missing person” fliers with Dan’s face on them. Sometimes the new ones he hangs up in their place have a different photo on it. Phil tells himself that the new photo has better lighting, and a better angle, and that now someone will be able to recognize him and bring him home. 

Sometimes people see the fliers and they do recognize him, but only because they used to be his fans. It makes them sad to see that Phil is still trying, because, often, they had given up trying years ago and forgotten. Dan was a phase, a moment of sanctity online in a confused, unpleasant world. It was easy to leave him behind when he himself became a reminder of that confused unpleasantness. 

Phil doesn’t have the luxury of forgetting. Dan was a lover, a friend, a warrior and a missile, fast-paced and dangerous and charming, and he was always there for Phil, always, cutting and bruising maybe but still definitely there. Dan fought and cried like everything was life or death, and it was this fiery passion of his that brought passion to Phil’s own life. They communicated in whistles and quips and each night they curled together, amass beneath checkered blankets, limbs and love entwined. 

Physical, certainly. Immortal, hopefully. 

The only thing Phil had forgotten was that nothing lasts forever. 

Nothing lasts forever.

~ ~ ~ 

Phil comes home from work one day to find the door to his flat is open. Just a crack, but still worrisome. Did he not shut it all the way? Or has someone broken in? What if they’re still inside? 

As he creeps in, he grabs an umbrella. The stairs creak as he climbs them, but he doesn’t notice. He can hear his heart pounding but nothing else. When he turns the corner into the living room, everything goes still. 

A living, breathing Dan Howell stands in the center of the room. He looks dazed. His clothes are dirty and too small. His hair is uncut, shaggy. Something smells. 

Phil drops the umbrella and rushes forward. His mouth isn’t connected with his mind but maybe he’s speaking. Dan looks down at him—down at him, is he taller than Phil remembers?—recognition in his eyes, his tired, dark eyes. Phil hugs him. Dan doesn’t move as Phil cries against his shoulder. Phil can’t believe it. It’s a dream, a dream. Only a dream.

No one understands at first when Phil tells them Dan has returned. They don’t get it, it doesn’t compute. He was dead, right? Didn’t we decide he was dead?

Dan doesn’t seem to get it either, which upsets Phil. Phil will say, “Want to watch a movie?” and Dan will shake and sob. Sometimes he begs Phil to not hurt him. Phil says, “I would never hurt you, don’t you know that?”

“Please,” Dan repeats, “please don’t hurt me.”

When it’s been eight days and Dan shows no signs of improvement, and when it’s been twelve days and Dan still won’t tell Phil where he’d been, Phil asks, “Why did you even come back here?” A few hours later, Phil realizes that may have been unfair. Still, Dan hadn’t replied, so maybe he hadn’t even heard. 

Dan stays with PJ for a few weeks after that and Phil feels awful. He calls PJ almost every day to make sure Dan is alright, and he begs PJ to apologize for him. The first time PJ mentions rape, Phil drops the phone and doesn’t pick it up again until the next morning. It doesn’t make sense. Dan is old, and a man! People don’t rape people who are old and men. That’s not even to mention how tall Dan is. It just doesn’t make sense. 

The second time PJ brings it up, Phil is more prepared. He tells PJ why it can’t be true, and then there’s a long silence. PJ tells him, “That’s just not how it is,” and then he mentions human trafficking, or kidnapping, and Phil projectile vomits. “It’s only a possibility,” PJ says when Phil has recovered. “A guess. I’m not sure yet. He hasn’t told me much.”

“Can we do anything?” Phil asks. “Police?”  
“I’m… I don’t think so. I don’t think Dan really knows anything either, to be honest. And even if he did… he’s not capable of testifying anything right now.” 

“Oh,” Phil chokes. “Right.”

When Dan comes back home, he seems a little better. Phil apologizes for his behavior and they hug, if a little awkwardly. Phil is scared to touch Dan, scared of upsetting him, frightening him. Dan tells Phil that PJ found him a therapist, and that he’s been seeing him twice a week. He tells Phil, “I’d like to watch a movie now, perhaps,” and Phil smiles, but then, “if it’s okay with you. We don’t have to if you don’t want to. Sorry.” 

The smile is gone, but they settle on the couch together with a bowl of popcorn between them regardless. 

They used to sit closer together. Their thighs would touch, and Phil would wrap an arm over Dan’s shoulders. But today, Phil gives Dan space. 

It takes months before Phil is able to piece together any kind of story. It looks like this:

“I was walking, you know, I don’t want to go that way anymore. I was walking for, for milk, I think, for groceries—I—I’m, no, I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“There were plastic bags in my hands. I—I couldn’t stop him.”

“Most of it is a blur, which is nice, I guess. He gave me some kind of pill. But there are snippets, and I—it’s almost worse, I think, not… not knowing…”

“This scar—I don’t remember where it came from. But it’s so deep, look. It must have hurt a lot.” 

“The door was open. It was just… open. I’d never seen that before.”

“I had no idea where I was, but I saw a familiar coffee shop and then somehow I was here. The key was… it was where it always was, behind the loose part of the door frame. I wasn’t sure, but… I wasn’t sure you’d still be there. Honestly, I didn’t even know where I was, or how I knew where to find the key… but then I saw you and ti was like things came together just a little bit.”

“I don’t want to go back. Please, Phil, don’t make me go back.”

~ ~ ~ 

Dan has gained weight and his hair is trimmed and there aren’t shadows under his eyes anymore. He laughs with his friends again. He’s still a lover but he has less love to give. He’s slow and steady and he thinks carefully, and sometimes, when he’s having a bad day, he needs Phil there to think carefully for him. Dan doesn’t cry and he doesn’t fight. He and Phil communicate but not like they used to, not with late nights and tangled breaths but with soft touches and little smiles. 

Dan is physical but nothing lasts forever, and Phil knows that now. His best friend, his heart, his passion, his warrior and his missile—that person is gone. But being with a boy who has brown hair and who smiles and communicates and touches softly, Phil can almost pretend Dan actually came back. This is what life and death looks like.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought?:)


End file.
